The Hugo Awards: Going Down to the Wire

On 20 July I blogged about my mission to read all the fiction finalists for this year’s Hugo Awards and get back to you before the 31st—the final date for voting—to let you know how it’s going.

Well, firstly, my eyeballs are falling out. Did I mention that it was a big list? I can now confirm that the organisers were not wrong when they advised aspiring voters to get reading “ . . . because there’s a lot of reading material in that Packet.” Personally, six novels, six novellas, six novelettes and five short stories later, I think whoever wrote that line should get a special award for being the Maestro of Understatement!

Have I enjoyed the journey? As you can imagine, when you’ve 23 stories to read, from short tales to novels, there’s going to be stories you like more than others. Interestingly, I also found that there were categories I preferred, in my case novel and novelette, whereas the novellas and short stories did not grab me by the scruff of the neck and drag me along for the ride to the same extent. Although there were, of course, exceptions in both cases . . .

‘Like’ and ‘not like’ can be totally subjective, so just because I generally enjoyed my novelette and novel reading experience and was more mixed about the short story and novella finalists doesn’t mean that you will feel the same way. But I thought you might be interested to know about some of the trends that struck me, and I can come back to evaluation after the voting closes tomorrow. (Because after all, it would be wrong to try and influence you in anyway.)

For me, other than getting to read a whole bunch of new fiction, themes and trends may be the most intriguing aspect of reading so many stories together. I have been particularly fascinated looking at where our SciFi-Fantasy reading is currently centered. Overlaps are fun, too: for example, that we can get two finalists working with the idea of a palimpsest (a manuscript written over) in such different contexts as Catherynne M Valente’s novel and Charles Stross’s novella. The idea of libraries and lists figure in both Palimpsest stories, as well, and also occur in Laurence M Shoen’s The Moment.

In terms of theme, the “punks” clearly rule, with Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, Nancy Kress’s Act One and Ian McDonald’s Vishnu at the Cat Circus carrying the banner for biopunk. I’d put Robert J Sawyer’s Wake as the sole contender for cyberpunk, while steampunk is clearly enjoying consistent popularity. Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker, Kage Baker’s The Women of Nell Gwynne’s and Paul Connell’s One of Our Bastards is Missing may carry the banner, but there’s overtones in The Windup Girl (clippers and dirigibles) and Robert Charles Wilson’s Julian Comstock (22nd America has reverted to 19th mechanical technology).

A friend who is doing Hugos reading, too, maintains that China Mieville is, “of course”, in a category all his own—that, she avers, of China Mieville. But I have to disagree when it comes to theme, because for me, “city” is one of the big themes of the fiction finalists. Two of the novels, Mieville’s The City & The City and Valente’s Palimpsest, deal with the idea of overlapping cities. But there is also Bacigalupi’s Bangkok and Priest’s Seattle, the strange city of Eugie Foster’s Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast—and N.K. Jemisin’s Non-Zero Probabilities is also decidedly urban. I also say “urban” in the sense that so many of the stories are set in a form of “real” human society, despite fantastic / weird overtones. With the exception of Stross’s Palimpsest and Shoen’s The Moment, this is true of every story mentioned so far—and certainly includes Nicola Griffiths’ It Takes Two or James Morrell’s Shambling Towards Hiroshima.

The other major thread running through the 23 finalists, from short stories to novels, is that of dystopia, whether it is the alternate history dystopia of Boneshaker; or the near feature dystopias of Julian Comstock, The Windup Girl and Vishnu at the Cat Circus.

So what isn’t there? Well, there are zombies—decidedly in Boneshaker and with a nod thereto in Charles Stross’s Overture—but no vampires, werewolves or angels, that I can recollect. There are gods in John Scalzi’s The God Engines, but definitely not in the Paranormal sense. Despite the popularity of Twilight et al among teens, romance is thin on the ground amongst the Hugos finalists. I must nod to Adam and Calyxa in Julian Comstock, Griffiths’ It Takes Two, and The Bride of Frankenstein, although I’m not sure that it’s romance as the legions of Twilight fans know it … But there’s definitely sex, with Valente’s Palimpsest and Kij Johnson’s Spar to the fore.

The big thing that struck me though, trends-wise, was how far this list is from the science fiction I read as a kid / young adult. Back then I started with Herbert (Dune), Asimov and Heinlein, and moved into Cherryh, Le Guin and Brin—and science fiction meant space, and ships, and alien cultures, even if it might not always be hard sci-fi. Of the finalists that I would clearly put in these categories, two of the novellas (John Scalzi’s The God Engines and Charles Stross’s Palimpsest), one of the novelettes (Peter Watts’ The Island) and two short stories (Spar and The Moment) are clear fits. Overall, just on 20% of the 23 finalists, but none of the novels—which I found interesting, observationally speaking, and which may be a conversation for another day, i.e. why space doesn’t wow us anymore …

For now, though I’ve got some serious evaluating and ranking to do. I’ll let you know how that’s gone once the voting’s done, because as previously mentioned, I wouldn’t like try and influence you in any way.

Comments

Wow! That is a whole lot of reading in a short amount of time. Hope you had some sliced cucumber on hand to rest your eyes a bit in between books. ;) Interesting observations regarding the current trends. I hadn't really thought about the lack of stories set in space recently. That is still the childhood impression I have of the term 'sci-fi', but I've personally only read one book with starships so far this year (aside from children's picture books, that is). Dystopia and steampunk are the two trends I seem to see most frequently in the YA sci-fi arena right now, and the conclusions you've drawn regarding the Hugo nominees seem to indicate that those trends are dominating the adult market right now too. Thanks for sharing your observations. :)

I'm impressed! So many books and some I am very curious about, like Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, Robert J Sawyer’s Wake Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker, Kage Baker’s The Women of Nell Gwynne’s. Thank you for the interesting analysis of trends. :)

Thanks for commenting Violet and Giada--it was a lot of reading in a short time, but I think that's why some of the very strong themes stood out. And it was fun and made me try books that I otherwise might not have read of got around to for some time.

Wow, I had no idea that there were so many categories---I usually prefer reading full-length novels (with a few exceptions), but I would think with such a short period of time, it would be nice to have the shorter ones mixed in!

It sounds like an amazing challenge--I'm curious if you stayed on track, or if you had to break it up with some "recreational" reading, just to refresh yourself?

Towards the end it was very much a matter of 'staying on track', but earlier on I did have a few 'side reads': Tamora Pierce's "Beka Cooper, Blood Hound" was one and "Trudi Canavan's "The Ambassador's Mission" another.